Michelle Obama book tour tickets fetch up to $13,000

Michelle Obama's U.K. fans were left disappointed after tickets to her book talk quickly sold out and emerged on secondary ticketing sites for up to $13,000 each.

The former U.S. First Lady is about to embark on a book tour titled Becoming: An Intimate Conversation With Michelle Obama to promote her upcoming memoir Becoming, which is to be released on Nov. 13.

Her tour includes a stop at the Southbank Centre in London on 3 December, and tickets for the event sold out shortly after they went on sale on Thursday morning, with more than 55,000 people waiting in an online queue in the hope of getting one of only 2,700 tickets available.

Fans were even more frustrated to be missing out when they discovered tickets appearing on secondary ticketing sites such as Viagogo for up to $13,000 a piece.

A representative for the Southbank Centre informed followers on Twitter that they had asked Viagogo officials to remove the "unauthorized" tickets, which will be cancelled. Those attending the talk can only collect their tickets on the day when they present photographic ID.

"We are delighted that our event Becoming: An Evening with Michelle Obama on 3 December is so popular," a spokesperson for the venue said in a statement. "The capacity of Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall is just over 2700 and due to extreme demand for this event, unfortunately there will be people who are disappointed at not being able to purchase a ticket.

"We take secondary ticketing very seriously and aim to discourage this by stipulating that tickets should not be resold for profit or commercial gain. If we find tickets on sale without our authorization by any unauthorized third parties they are identified and cancelled."

A spokesperson for Viagogo told London's Evening Standard that the site is simply a marketplace for third parties to buy and sell tickets and they have no control over pricing.